Despite the possibility that our actions might not influence the outcome of professional sports, almost every Detroit Lions fan is working to win football games.

The Lions are riding a five-game winning streak, or nine games including the end of last season, and some credit probably goes to the players and coaches.

Still, many fans are so intoxicated by the strange feeling of victory that we assume we are helping in ways that appear useless to sane people.

A friend in Jackson wins games by refusing to shave his beard until the Lions lose. He’d be delighted to resemble Grizzly Adams in January.

My son wins games by putting a collection of charms precisely in place before each kickoff, and he adheres to a strict regimen of lucky traditions.

No one beats me for extreme useless action.

“If the Lions start out 4-0,” I vowed before the season, “I will get my tattoo upgraded.”

What the heck? I already was disfigured.

Ten years ago, I tattooed my left shoulder with the Lions logo to stop a losing streak. The voodoo was so strong that the team won two games that year.

When the Lions actually opened this season at 3-0 — which seemed no more likely than me escaping the Earth’s gravitational pull by jumping — I sped up the schedule and paid a visit to Ye Old Skull tattoo parlor in Jackson.

A quick glance at the staff and customer base revealed only one person in the shop wore Dockers pants and a button-up shirt. I looked like a weirdo.

Andy, my tattoo artist, called the kind of job I wanted “a rework.” Often this involves blotting out names of former lovers.

“I tell guys if they want to get a tattoo for a woman, it should say ‘Wife,’ or ‘Girlfriend’ or ‘Her Name,’ ” Andy said.

He went to a computer and found a Lions logo, sized it, and somehow made a stencil for my skin.

My old tattoo, he explained, could be converted into the new Lions logo if he made it “big enough to be relevant.”

Everyone wants to be big enough to be relevant. I gave the green light.

Using blue, black and white ink with his electric-needle thing, Andy worked his magic.

“What do you think?” he said when finished.

Looking down at the shoulder, I was overcome.

“Dude,” I said, “it’s so, so ... beautiful. I promise to send all my 50-something, Dockers-wearing friends here for their tattoos.”

Laugh if you wish at superstitions of Lions fans, but Sunday we work on six in a row.